Review: The Liminal People

Taggert, a man blessed with mysterious powers that he can use at will to heal and injure, has been trying to master them his whole life. It is only when he meets Nordeen, a drug lord infintely more mysterious and powerful than himself, that Taggert can even grasp the full extent of his own abilities. When an old love calls in for help from London, he will have to return to a world he had left behind and that has forgotten him.

The Liminal People is a good, fast-paced mix of science-fiction and noir, and at a little more than 200 pages long, it never really slows down. However, despite its brevity, the author manage to squeeze in unique and interesting characters, and some character development. The reader discovers that there exists a whole subculture of people with mystical powers, complete with some of them who think they can co-habit with normal humans and those who seek only to destroy them.

While I did enjoy this short book, the fact that I received an advance copy meant that I couldn't appreciate it as much as I would have had it been proofread. Some sentence structure was completely off, and I sometimes found myself reading whole paragraphs a second or even a third time to get its meaning. Also, the whole concept reminded me too much of X-Men, where Noreen is a manipulative and shrewd Professor X and Taggert is Wolverine, just without the claws. Put together, those two factors very much diminished the enjoyment I would have had reading this short novel.

Had I wanted to read X-Men, I would have, you know?

3/5

Jasper Kent, Twelve

1812, Napoleon is marching relentlessly on towards Moscow and the Russians are getting worried. Nothing seems to be able to stop the little French Emperor from conquering all of Europe. A small group of Russian officers specializing in infiltration and stealth are at their wits ends but one of them has... contacts.

The Oprichniki, as they call the twelve strange, hooded men who fight only by night, can take on a hundred Frenchmen each and leave nothing but devastation behind them. Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov doesn't trust the mercenaries and as winter draws near, he comes to realize that the weapon might be worse than the enemy. Unwittingly, he hay have unleashed a much greater peril than Napoleon's army on his compatriots.

Twelve reads like a serious historical novel but with all the dark, disturbing twists of a good horror novel, the kind that messes with your mind, not your lunch. It is rich in historical facts about the war, Russian culture and setting. It reads like a novel by one of the great Russian writers. It is a heavy sort of prose that goes on and on at a slow pace but it works. It does precisely what it needs to do and builds up the terror layer by layer as the reader is oppressed by the bleakness, the slow, inexorable journey towards each new revelation. It is not a novel you can just sit down and breeze through. You have to slowly digest it but it is worth it.


Twelve is the first in a series of five books that will take the reader from 1812 to the Russian Revolution in 1917. It is published by Bantam Books.


4/5

Review: Heirs of Mars

Asher Radescu, in an attempt to curb Mars' diminishing birth rate, roams its canyon in search of dying souls for digital reincarnation, also known as cloning. Claudia Cruz, the most popular entertainer on the planet, entertains children in the morning and risks her life for the general populace at night, all for the sake of keeping morale. And Holm, a Cartesian, is desperately looking for a way out.

In all, six men and women share the spotlight in this science-fiction novel, where there is no great love between humans, clones and Cartesians. Life on Mars is harsh for everyone, even when living in the shiny city of New Troy. In fact, a war is waging between humans and Cartesians. When Asher and Claudia take it upon themselves to put an end to the Cartesians once and for all, they drag scientists, clones and rogue mechs along with them.

This isn't your Utopian Mars colonization story. Life is hard, birth levels are low, and "clonism" is apparent. Clones exist if only to curb the declining birth rate, and people are worried that the human race on Mars will eventually die out and clones will inherit the planet. Cartesians, on the other hand, are afraid clones will eventually be used as weapons against them, so they take it upon themselves to eradicate humans, who create clones in the first place.

As the story is recounted with multiple points of view, the reader sees each facet of the story; the human side, the clones' perspective, and how Cartesians see things. Artificial intelligence and robotics are rather well depicted, albeit a bit vulgarized, as to not render the story too complex. The main theme isn't science nor colonization, but how the not understood is generally feared.

The story, while fast-paced and entertaining, still leaves space for character development. However, Radescu, the main protagonist, gets the biggest piece of the pie when it comes to background. In any case, each character's individual personality evolves throughout the story, as their motives become clearer.

Heirs of Mars is an entertaining piece of science-fiction. More fiction than science, which sometimes, is just the way I like it.

3.5/5

Review: Hood

Set in medieval Wales, following the Norman conquest of the William the Conqueror, Lawhead revisits the tale of Robin Hood, and makes it (according to him, anyway) more historically correct.

Bran ap Brychan is the rightful heir of Elfael, a small kindom in Wales. When his father is killed and his lands confiscated, he travels to London and demands justice. When his request is refused, he has no choice but to go home. But a worse fate seems to await in Elfael; he is now a fugitive and his subjects are all but enslaved by the childish, corrupt, and brutal Count de Braose.

While he never wanted the throne at all, Bran faces a dilemma: should he flee to save is own neck, or help his people, which he thinks are in a hopeless situation? The answer lies perhaps with the Raven King, a creature of myth born of the shadows of the forest.

This novel, first of a trilogy (yeah...I have a thing for series, it seems), gives a classic tale a new perspective. Gone are Sherwood Forest and King Richard Lionheart. Instead, Lawhead gives us Count de Braose and the Marches of Wales. Indeed, it was fun to figure out which role each character plays (Friar Tuck, Little John, etc.). However, Bran was very hard to like. Throughout the novel, he acts like a child instead of the prince he's supposed to be. He's very reluctant in taking back his throne, and thinks his people are in a hopeless situation and saving them isn't worth it.  Even his mentor, the bard Angharad, has a hard time convincing him to do the right thing, although she never gives up on him.

The multiple viewpoints in this story give the novel some depth and insight into the main characters, including Falkes de Braose, who acts as ruler of Elfael, but is merely a puppet to someone else, Marian, who is convinced Bran is dead and has mixed feelings for the Baron of Neufmarché, and Tuck, a seemingly secondary character, but plays a large role in the story.

Unfortunately, good character development doesn't compensate for lack of pacing. While there is some action in the first chapters of the novel, it drags on and on for some time and never really picks up again. I thought it rather unnecessary to describe Bran's exile in every single detail, from his flight out of Elfael to the realization that he must do the right thing for his people. Also, while I haven't read the other two books of the trilogy, I also find unnecessary to write a trilogy recounting Hood's tale. One would have been sufficient.

While it was an interesting take on a classic myth, and the author is gracious enough to explain his reasoning in his afterword, in retrospect, I don't think I'll be reading the last two books of the trilogy any time soon.

3/5

Review: The Way of Shadows

 For Durzo Blint, the most feared wetboy in Cenaria, assassination is an art. For Azoth, it's a way out of his miserable young life, and ultimately, about survival. When Blint very reluctantly takes Azoth as his apprentice, the young boy must change his identity and renounce his old life, including everything and everyone he knew. As Kylar Stern, a poor aristocrat, he struggles to give up certain aspects of his former life, comes to understand who really rules the streets of Cenaria, and learns the hard way what it takes to be a true killer.

The focal point of this story is the relationship between Blint and Kylar. Blint is a hard master who will stop at nothing to make Kylar one of the best wetboys in the city, while the apprentice is reluctant to live as Blint does: rejecting all emotions and everything that would be considered a weakness; mainly, love. Ultimately, they both are left damaged, as are all of the characters in the novel; none are immune to the cruelties of the world, and they are all trying to find light in the enduring darkness, as bleak as it can be.

Extensive character development and their individual reaction to the events surrounding them leaves little place for world-building, but the novel is so fast-paced that it doesn't really matter. I can only speculate, but I imagine that the world the characters live in will take much more space in the two other novels of this trilogy. However, most of that character development is spent on the main characters and few of the supporting cast. Most notably, the mages Solon, Feir, and Dorian hint at a fascinating shared past, but their relationship is never really explored upon. Perhaps they will be put to better use in the second or third installment as well.

Brent succeeds in intertwining an assassin story and a coming-of-age story, while adding elements of wizardry and magic in a in-your-face, yet subtle way. And behind Kylar's story is a much bigger picture that becomes more visible as the story advances. By the end of the first novel, the unfolding events become to big to prevent, and all are caught in the cross fire.

The author also excels at twisting plots and adding intrigue and suspense to otherwise common themes in fantasy novels; at building strong, believable characters without being caught in the trap of stereotypes.

And each of them has a story to tell.

4/5